The Star of America’s political leftist sit-com, Ocasio-Cortez has made new headlines today with another proclamation seemingly plucked from a well-spring of truth that only she can access. Otherwise known as outright lunacy. Here’s the twenty-nine year old representative’s comments on her “Profound” millennial generation: “I think this new generation is very profound, and very strong, and very brave, because they’re actually willing to go to the streets,” she said. “Previous generations have just assumed that government’s got it.”

Apparently the politically -turbulent 1960’s in which students were gunned down by police on campuses, in which young protesters were hosed down and tear gassed, in which the baby-boomers flung chants at Lyndon Johnson “Hey Hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today?” or the cigarettes thrown at soldiers returning from Vietnam, or the Kent State massacre, the burning of draft cards, the race riots of Chicago, the sheer decade worth of brave young men and women who marched in the streets, who railed against the walls of Washington–and who, are the heirs to Hunter S. Thompson’s beautiful passage:

“Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder’s jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

“Strange
memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems
like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes
again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to
be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no
explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of
knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world.
Whatever it meant. . . .

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even
without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that
every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long
fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which
never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe
forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and,
instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a
hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder’s
jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of
Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I
got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find
neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no
matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high
and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay,
then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could
strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we
were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over
the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need
that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our
side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and
beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las
Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the
high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”